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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  October 2, 2012 6:00pm-7:00pm PDT

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starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, ed. i'm jealous of your plans right now, but i want a full report tomorrow. >> i'll have the full report on colorado. >> excellent. thank you. i'll see you tomorrow. thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. there's breaking political news this hour. as previously uncirculated or not widely circulated tape of president obama on the one side and vice presidential nominee paul ryan on the other side have both been posted online tonight in typical, late in the campaign, october surprise, boy do we have a bomb shell fashion. first on the right at the tucker carlson website, the right wing sirens blaring excitement tonight is for the same kind of tape they have tried to make bomb shells out of the last three times we have gone through this in the election cycle. over and over and over again,
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the right has tried to make huge news not out of something president obama has done as president but out after a big unveiling, a big, giant, coordinated round of attention for something from president obama's supposedly secret past. this spring it was the glen beck website dousing themselves in gasoline and pulling the fire alarm over video of president obama speaking as a law student at harvard. video at a press conference where obama says nothing news worthy. that was explosive tape, not at all. last month it was the drudge report, which means the romney c campaign, it was them again dousing themselves in gasoline and pulling the fire alarm as what was hyped as outrageous video of president obama saying he believes in redistribution. specifically it was that he
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believes essentially in the progressive tax code that we have had in this country for a time period that's more easily measured in centuries than in individual years. again, not exactly a bomb shell. now they are dousing themselves in gasoline and hitting the fire alarm all over again over a video of president obama speaking as a candidate in 2007. in this video, which the right is very excited about tonight but which has been available online since 2007, mr. obama, then a candidate, acknowledges the presence in the room of his former pastor from chicago, reverend jeremiah wright. steve smith was part of the strategic team in 2008 when they decided that they would not attack barack obama based on his pastor. but this is a different year and it is telling that the right thinks what will unravel the presidency of barack obama and make him a one-term president, the thing that will make people
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vote for mitt romney is not something from the obama presidency but rather something secret from barack obama's past. something secret people didn't know about him before. if they only knew this about him, his reelection would be impossible. that's the one side of this bomb shell tape. from the other side, this year's bomb shell tapes of paul ryan and mitt romney have not been about some secret past for these men. unless you count paul ryan pledging his allegiance back in 2 2005. the tape that's made a big impact against the republican side this year has been tape of things that paul ryan and mitt romney have been saying within the past year. specifically when they are talking to conservative audiences. so two weeks ago, david corn and ryan grim at "the huffington post" posted video of romney talking to wealthy donors in florida.
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deriding the 47% of the country that he said did not pay federal income taxes and who were dependent on the government and victims and who he would never be able to reach because he would not be able to purr suede them to take responsibility for their lives. >> i'll never convince 47% of the country to take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
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those comments he describes his disdain for half the country, those comments have had a measurable impact on the campaign. in the new poll just released in the last couple hours, people say those remarks from mr. romney made them feel more negative than positive toward mr. romney by a 22-point margin. those results match other polling that shows those comments alienated undecided voters. regardless of what you think of the substance of that it statement from mr. romney, it did turn the whole republican pundit class against him, called every candidate in a contested race to distance themselves from the presidential nominee of their party to start campaigning against mitt romney, telling voters, listen, i don't like that guy on that issue either, but vote for me any way even though i'm a republican. whether or not you think the remarks were scandalous, the polling impact of them is now showing up directly at a time when mr. romney's egregiously
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bad polling numbers seem to be calcifying and when most voters are now starting to vote. an incredibly negative impact for romney and his campaign at a difficult time for them. now on the eve of the first presidential debate, if they were hoping to put that behind them, any hope of getting away from the issue has now been expunged because "the huffington post" tonight set off its own bells and whistles, flashing siren bomb shell by posting previously uncirculated video of paul ryan speaking less than a year ago. and what will effect the debate tomorrow is mr. ryan in these comments makes the same case romney was making when he made the devastating 47% remarks. in ryan's case, he doesn't use the 47%. he picks a different figure. for him the figure is 30%. you may remember ryan himself
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his response to that disastrous tape of mr. romney at the fundraiser was that romney was, quote, obviously inarticulate in making his point about the proportion of americans who are dependent on the government, vi victims and not worth his time. here's how paul ryan makes that same point. >> the point is we are reach in a fiscal tipping point. the moral tipping point is even worse. the moral tipping point is before too long we could become a society we were never ever intended to be. we could become a society where the net majority of americans are takers, not makers. another great think tank runs great numbers. i'm kind of a numbers guy. 20% of americans get 75% of their income from the federal government. they are dependent. another 20% of americans get 40% of their income from the federal
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government so they are reliant. today 70% of americans get more benefits from the federal government in dollar value than they pay back in taxes. so you could argue we're already past that tipping point. the good news is survey after survey, poll after poll still shows we're a center right 70/30 country. 70% of americans want the american dream. they believe in the american idea. only 30% want the welfare state. >> 30% of americans do not want the american dream. 30% of americans do not believe in the american idea. 30% of americans just want the welfare state. so for mitt romney, it's 47% and for paul ryan it's 30%. the idea that a large portion of americans are beyond the reach of the kind of politics the republican ticket is offering,
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it turns out it's both guys on the ticket who believe that. it's not just mitt romney. joining us is ryan grim, washington bureau chief for "the huffington post." thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> this is not new tape tonight. these are not new remarks. they are from november. i have to ask how they came to your attention and whether there's any suggestion from the ryan camp or romney folks that there's any question to its authenticity. >> there's no question. it was at a spectator event last november. it's been online since then, almost nobody has viewed it. it was sent to me and a few other reporters over the weekend along with about 15 or 20 other clips of paul ryan saying things over the past ten years. and i had kind of put it off sunday and monday, and today i just decided i'd listen to a bunch of these clips and here
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you go. here's paul ryan. >> in terms of the list of stuff that you were being sent, i know enough about paul ryan's history to know he makes comments that are sort of like this, sort of along the lines about makers and takers, the vision of an america that's a zero sum game between those giving and taking. e do you feel like these are the most newsworthy because you see that as a parallel to what romney was saying about 47% of the country? >> it's dove tailed with what romney said. romney set the stage for him. on the timeline, romney made his comments about six months after paul ryan did. he also in some of the clips we were sent talks about medicare and how he's arguing what we're doing is privatizing medicare. he's saying get behind me. this is what we're trying to do.
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we either have that up now or will soon. but i thought this one was the most newsworthy immediately because of the two weeks of discussion we had about moochers and this whole conversation about makers and takers, which is borderline ridiculous. >> around the time -- at the time of the 47% remarks for mr. romney being publicized, you actually got that story up online first before mother jones did. mother jones posted the full video and you both had the story up that same night. i should give you credit for that. especially the fact you have posted this now. looking at both of these scoops now, the issue here is that romney and ryan are pitching something to conservative audiences or conservative donors that's different than what they are pitching the country as a whole, or is it they are pitching the same thing but use blunter language? >> i think it's just blunter language.
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i think that romney, ryan and a lot of the donors don't think that behind closed doors a lot of this stuff is that offensive. i have talked to several of my right wing friends who when romney's tape came out said i wish romney talked like this more often. they are able to say this because they never lived on government assistance. they have lived on corporate welfare, but they don't see that as the same thing. for people who have lived on government assistance, it can be a soul-crushing thing. for instance, unemployment. i've been on unemployment. other people on unemployment know that it's just kind of a debilitating feeling to know you're not contributing at that moment. and the idea that that's your preferred state of being just shows the lack of understanding
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that people like romney and ryan have for people who are in that situation. anybody would rather have a meaningful and well-paying job that enables them to provide for their family rather than feeling like they are some type of leech. it's doubly insulting when they are then told on this national stage, hey, you're in a rough time in your life. not only are you in a rough time, but you're a leech on society. >> the phrasing, they are not exact parallel phrasing, but romney saying these people cannot be persuaded to take responsibility for their lives. and ryan saying they do not believe in the american dream. similar parallel language. ryan grim, congratulations on a second scoop. thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you, rachel. then there's the conservative media's huge explosive video that will change the results of the election. that's been online since 2007. the drudge report and fox news and the rest of the conservative
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media spear tonight lost their minds over tape in which the main offense by president obama appears to be that he's an african-american man addressing an african-american audience. we'll be back on that in a moment. by bright eyes
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the conservative website pulled out all the stops to promote a big, new bomb shell video.
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initially putting news of that video under the big flashing siren thing. and even though the drudge report has been down this road a bunch of times this campaign season, whenever the romney campaign wants to launch something new that wants to be seen as big news, today the mainstre mainstream media fell for it all over again for a minute when it turned out to be an old video of obama acknowledging his former pastor. >> i have to give a special shout out to my pastor, the guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. he's a friend and a great leader. please, everybody, give an extraordinary welcome to my
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pastor dr. jeremiah wright. where's he at? there he is. that's him. that's him right there. are you letting this scandal just wash over you? the way the right wing teased to the scandalous nature of the video tells you pretty much what you need to know about what they think is important about this. here's how it was being teased on the drudge report about 7:00 tonight. the accent, the anger, the shoutout to reverend wright, who is in the audience. and the snippet from the front page, we should be investing in minority-owned businesses in our neighborhoods. you're supposed to think that our neighborhoods thing is not our american neighborhoods but in neighborhoods that that guy barack obama would only call our neighborhoods in front of a black audience.
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this is supposed to make you believe that in this tape from before he was president that barack obama is revealing his secret plan to be way more black than he seems to you now. this is how he snuck into the white house. people didn't know he was it this black and if they would have known that, they never would have elected him. the efforts to make president obama's race sound like new news and to make it sound shocking are right now ramping up aggressively. last week, for example, here was newt gingrich going all out with it. if you want to make a racial reference bingo card from the '70s, the terms are basketball, performer, the word rhythm, and you'll want a special box for references to the president as sleepy or lazy. >> i'm assuming that some rhythm to barack obama that the rest of us don't understand. whether he needs large amounts of rest, whether he needs to go
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play basketball for awhile. i don't watch espn. i don't know what his rhythms are, but this is a guy who is a brilliant performer who may well get reelected at the present date. and who frankly happens to be a partial part-time president. he really is like e the substitute referees in the sense that he's not a real president. he doesn't do things presidents do. he doesn't worry about things presidents do. but he has the white house. he has enormous power. he'll go down in history as president. and i suspect he's contemptuous of the the rest of us. >> that's new englat gingrich s he's not a real president. and also he's lazy and has rhythm. newt gingrich is the one who called president obama the food stamps president. it was gingrich who suggested a
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line of attack portraying president obama as the welfare president. specifically the lazy. vick ticks who are dependent on the government. at least it was before those remarks were made public. still a bit of a surprise that the romney campaign bit on mr. gingrich's idea, that they took that advice. but they did take that advice. the ream campaign has been running ads accused president obama of gutting welfare reform by removing its work requirements. president obama did not do that, but the romney ads, a lot of them now, say he did. they show white americans working hard and they say this president wants to take your hard-earned money and give it away to lazy welfare recipients who aren't working. it's not true as a matter of policy. but that's how the romney campaign has been running against obama.
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he rere pepeated the lie to cnn last week. there was a moment back in may when it became a scandal that a pro-mitt romney super pac had even been pitched the idea of bringing jeremiah wright back as an attack on president obama. that ad campaign was never picked up by the pro-romney super pac or the romney campaign itself. it was a scandal they had even been asked to pick up something that racially charged. but a few months later, the campaign picked up the welfare nonsense campaigning in a way that's divorced from the facts but that's loaded with enough sub text to knock you over in a still wind. and they picked up newt gingrich surrogate in his food stamps attack. no and now fox news and the pro-mitt romney drudge report just are going full bore on the
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jeremiah wright stuff, as o of right now. in 2008 the john mccain had a choice about whether or not they should campaign on really ove overtly racial appeals. things like the jeremiah wright attack. they chose not to in 2008. if the romney campaign is going to keep going there along with the the conservative media, can it work this year? would it have worked in 2008? what are the lessons from john mccain having not gone there in 2008 when he had the chance? the senior strategist from 2008 joins us next. [ male announcer ] the 2013 smart comes with 8 airbags, a crash management system and the world's only tridion safety cell which can withstand over three and a half tons. small in size. big on safety.
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you're about to see it for the first time. it contains some of the most devisive class warfare rhetoric ever used by barack obama. that's what journalists have been trying to hide for years. it's a glimpse into the mind of the real barack obama and it's one that all americans need to pay close attention to. >> that was fox news tonight. "huffington post" released tape of echoing the remarks about 47% of the country not taking responsible for their lives. paul ryan's remarks were that it was 30% of the country. they do not believe in the american dream and just believe. tucker carlson played at the
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time it came out, but they are newly excited about in part, as best i can tell, because president obama gives a shout out to his chicago pastor at the time jeremiah wright. do either require as a first debate eve giant up-end the campaign surprise? joining us is steve smith. he's now an msnbc contributor. thank you for being here. big deal? >> probably not. it's old news. this is well-covered ground. and there's nothing in the speech that seems to me on the surface that's going to reset anything in the race. what it will do is create a conversation in conservative media about this event, the old tape here, as opposed to the expectations game that mitt romney is trying to control ahead of a really high-stakes debate. >> that's interesting. i don't mean to cast dispurgss
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on the journalist integrity, but i have noticed there have been a number of things that the ream campaign have wanted to inject into the campaign discussion that have been launched on the drudge report. so again, not casting dispurgss, but why do this the night before the debate? >> all of the discussion, all of the speculation in the political media is about how high the stakes are for mitt romney tomorrow night. so it changes the subject a little bit. it's a bright, shiny object. it diverts attention away from the huge expectations that he has. mitt romney's lost control pr an expectations perspective to reality. he's behind in the race. he has to have a good debate performance to begin to close the gap to get back in the race and to get ahead of president obama if he's to be elected president. >> so this is sort of a safe -- obviously the romney campaign is hoping they do very well.
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if they do well, they can pretend this story didn't happen and try to get a bounce out of the debate. if they don't do well, they can fall back on this and hope it crowds out discussion of a bad debate performance? >> i watched the tape earlier online from the speech that the president gave five years ago. i think there's almost zero chance we'll be talking about this tape on thursday morning. >> unless the right makes it a cause against the media. there's rich ground to plow there in terms of whether or not the mainstream media is so biassed against mitt romney he can't get a fair shot? couldn't it be part of that? >> maybe, but i think the reality is that you're going to have the debate and whatever occurs during that debate is going to be the basis of what we're talking about on thursday morning. i'll be shocked if this is what we're talking about on thursday morning. >> on the other side, ryan grim
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who posted the paul ryan tape tonight, which is not new tape. it was remarks made in november. ryan said he was essentially fed that tape along with a lot of other clips of paul ryan over the weekend that he essentially just got around to it now and posted it today. it does not seem to have been timed quite so acutely for debate eve in the way that the drudgery report was. at the same time, substantively the ryan tape seems to reenforce this 47% tape ha romney has had trouble with. do you see it as reenforcing that problem? >> i think politically it may reenforce the problem. the 47% comments were a huge deal. and they have been criticized by a lot of republicans. the points that paul ryan is making are different. politically they merge together. but it is a meritorious debate
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to have when you look at the level of dependency in the country. do we want to live in a country where people are receiving a net transfer with tax dollars? do we want to live in a country where a minority of people are the tax providers? do you want everybody to be a stake holder? do you want everybody to have skin in the game? these are arguments worthy of a presidential campaign. what paul ryan is talking about, i think it will be blended together in the context of romney's comments, but i don't think it's necessarily fair to do it. >> i think you're right about the political blending of it and about the necessity of that discussion and that could be a sober and serious discussion. the part that makes it political is when you get this moral for anybody on the receiving side of a net transfer from the government. that's you're not taking responsibility for your life.
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you don't believe in the american dream stuff. >> it's the 47% comments. you're really talking about the entire enlisted core of the united states military, for example. i believe that veterans, for example, have earned the benefits that they are being given. so he described a big portion of the company that are republican voters. that's why it was so politically damaging. but i think what paul ryan is talking about is a different category. >> we shall see if this survives past tomorrow's big day. it will be fun to cover that with you tomorrow. steve schit. there's news about the 2012 election that's not five years old tonight. although it has to do with a strategy on the vote that involves who gets to vote. big new news that's been e colluded by the junk in the media. that story is coming up. [ male announcer ] imagine facing the day
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this much. mitt romney taped remarks at a fundraiser where he reported disdain for 47% of the country for not taking responsibility for their lives. those remarks are going to be inescapable now that his running mate feels the same about not 47% but rather 30%over country. from another piece of tape, we know not only that barack obama is black, but that he sometimes speaks to black audiences. according to the drudge report, sometimes he sounds black when he talks. so there's that new news. but there's also substantial news about who will be allowed to vote this fall. big news from the justice department that's not been wi widely reported. big news from the justice department and the courts. stay with us. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms by keeping my airways open for 24 hours.
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last year this billboard went up in a small town in massachusetts. it was a special election for a state legislative seat in the town of south bridge. this billboard went up on the side of the road. it says "show i.d." you do not have to show a massachusetts driver's license in order to vote in massachusetts. but this billboard sure makes it look like it, doesn't it? a few months later, there was another special election. voters inside the polling place
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in newbedford showed up to these guys in suits and ties. the sign says show i.d. to vote. and then underneath it it has some rules listed. rules. have valid government-issued i.d. then it says some more stuff. the last rule is voluntary compliance. this isn't actually a rule at all. it's just a couple guys trying to make you think it's a rule while you're trying to vote. after that election the massachusetts secretary of state ruled that it was illegal for those guys to be inside that polling place with their big sign that says show i.d. to vote. but by that time, the election was over so maybe the damage was done. we don't know how many people roll past that billboard and decided they wouldn't turn out to vote because they didn't have a driver's license. we don't know how many people strolled in thinking they were
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going to vote, saw the sign about issuing an i.d. to vote, knew they didn't have that and turned around and walked out. we don't know. it was a factually inaccurate claim on the billboard and sign. it was even illegal for them to be there. but the damage was done. if the point of requiring documentation to vote is that not everybody has it. so therefore, you filter out those who aren't likely to have the documentation. those interested in protecting the vote may be able to stop you from changing the law in order to do that? but what's the next best thing? maybe you can't win legally, but maybe you can get the word out. if you can be confusing enough about it, maybe you can forget the law. by virtue of intimidation or at least confusion. here's how it works in the great state of mississippi. in the great state of mississippi this past november, a referendum passed saying
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people couldn't vote without documentation. that many thousands of mississippi residents do not have. yesterday the department of justice told mississippi that given the special scrutiny that state earned under the voting rights act for many years of suppressing the black vote, given that special scrutiny, the justice department said no to this new proposed law in mississippi. or at least they said not yet. this law is at least not going to be in effect for the november election in mississippi. you're not going to have to show i.d. to vote in mississippi. the worry here was that because thousands of mississippi legal voters don't have the i.d. that would have been necessary under the new law, this new law would have kept disproportionate numbers from voting on election day. that law is now technically been blocked by this justice department letter. what if you could get that impact on the the electorate any way? this is what the mississippi
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secretary of state, who is a republican, has been doing all summer long in that state. he's been printing up and posting a thousand signs all across the state that say voter i.d. in big letters with a number to call if you need i.d., which by the way you don't need to vote in mississippi. mississippi's republican secretary of state spent the summer talking up the state's new law and sending out postcards all over the state about the new i.d. you're going to need to vote, even though that's not the law in mississippi. to be clear, if you do not have i.d., it's still okay for you to vote in mississippi this year, but you'd never know that by the way people have been advertising that if you don't have an i.d. stay away from the polls. it's not the law, but if you keep saying it over and over again, it might work any way. we got a court ruling on the law in pennsylvania to require i.d. it was the strictest in the nation and thought to have the
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largest impact on the presidential election this year. to the extent that pennsylvania is a swing state. the proportion of voters who would have been affected by this voter i.d. law is staggering. there are roughly 8 million registered voters in pennsylvania. estimates of the number of parezs who wouldn't be allowed to vote ranged as high as 1.3 million. so of pennsylvania's 8 million, more than 1 million of them were just not going to be allowed to vote under the rule change? no wonder pennsylvania republicans thought this was going to be such a big deal. >> voter i.d., which is going to allow governor romney to win the state of pennsylvania, done. >> make voting harder, done. that's going to amitt romney to win our state. the judge sort of squashed it. technically, he did. this should ought to be the most important thing. the bottom line here in pennsylvania is that as of this judge's ruling today, you don't
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have to have a driver's license or photo i.d. you can still vote in the election this november if dwrour a legal voter even if you don't have that i.d. so hundreds of thousands of old people and poor people and students and people who just live in philly and take public transportation and don't have a driver's license, hundreds of thousands, maybe more than a million legal voters who were going to be blocked from voting from this new republican law are now going to be allowed to vote. but conveniently for the people trying to stop them from voting, this judge left a couple things still intact. first, the judge made clear that poll workers can still ask people if they have i.d. any way. even though fst not legally required for you to have an i.d. to vote, he says the poll worker can still ask you. so if you don't have an i.d., the poll worker asks you, they are supposed to let you go ahead and vote and say, i don't have an i.d. any chance that's going to be
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confusing for people? think there might be any hang ups? think that might be confusing for voters who get asked that question. think that might turn voters around so they end up not voting? the republican governor back in the day when they got the law passed hired a republican fundraiser to create an ad campaign that was supposed to teach voters about the new restrictions on voting. an ad campaign broadcasting literally that if you do not have an i.d., if you don't have one of these, don't bother showing up to vote. that's not the law in pennsylvania. the law is you can show up even if you don't have this i.d. you're allowed to vote. they tried to change the law, they could not get away with it. what about that ad campaign? depending on how those conversations go, they may not have got wan with changing the law but it might work to keep the people without i.d.s away
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from the polling place. the people fighting the new law in the first place are asking the judge to quash the ad campaign too. they are looking into the matter. the mechanics of the election are upon us now. this was ohio today. yes, those are tents. people were sleeping in because early in-person voting started in ohio today. first lady was in ohio today not just to persuade people and to inspire people to vote for her husband but to persuade them to do so right this second which people in ohio could do starting today. in most of the swing states, early voting is happening already. and yeah the campaigns are still trying to sway people and there's the debate tomorrow. but we are now into it. we are into the mechanics of the election and how it is run. and in some ways how the election is being run and how the campaign prepares for it looks a little desperate for the republican party right now. we learned that as of yesterday, the republican party has ended
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all of the new voter registration efforts for colorado, virginia, north carolina, nevada and colorado. they had hired a single company to register voters in all those key states and now they have fired that company after it appeared to be turning in fraudulent forms for registering voters. the same company had been planning get out the vote. so if you're a republican partisan who wants mitt romney to win, you have to be concerned about this political reality that voter registration has been stopped by your party in those swing states. the but if you're worried about voter fraud about the possibility of voter fraud, you don't have to worry about this group's history that was hired by the rnc about whether they have done something that is going to prevent votes from being counted. not fake votes, real votes.
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this group is alleged to have gotten progressives to sign up to vote and thrown away the registration forms of the voters who signed up as democrats. did this happen? this group has been fired now. they say they're sorry but given what they were accused of in past. how much damage has been done? might it work to suppress the vote anyway? now with today's ruling. the list of states where republicans try to change the law to block voters from being able to cast ballots. includes wisconsin, texas, florida, arizona, south carolina, ohio and now pennsylvania and mississippi. back to back the courts have stepped in and all in of those places republicans have tried to changele law and they've not been able to. but how do you quantify how much damage was done anyway? joining us now is the president of america votes and a former
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colorado state senator. joan fitzgerald, thank you for being with us tonight. >> thank you for having me, rachel. >> in an earlier election, the voter registration firm that the republican party just fired, they are accused of i am percent nating of the group you now lead, this group america votes which is obviously left leaning. and then tearing up those registrations. how does your group quantify the damage from something like that? >> it's really hard to quantify. that was back in 2004, and as you've said this year all of this talk about voter suppression actually creates an environment that does suppress the vote, even if you don't pass the legislation or the legislation is not enacted. and we know that from studies that have been done. you're setting up barriers to people, real or imagined, that
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prevent people from going to the polls and exercising importantly a constitutional right. >> so even in the cases where the efforts to change the voting rules have been turned back by the courts like we saw today in pennsylvania, even in states where it is been fought over but the voter suppressing side has not won, you're saying people hear about that and believe they will be blocked from voting? >> yes. there's confusion. there's confusion with people who work at the polls. there's confusion with the voters. what do i need when i go? i've seen these signs. the ad campaign is continuing in pennsylvania. so people are going to be confused even if the law was blocked by the courts saying they didn't have enough time to get voter i.d. to all the people that needed it. apparently a much larger number than the general assembly was willing to admit in pennsylvania. >> what's the way to fight that? obviously part of that is winning the legal case, but how do you win the rest of the battle? >> we had always assumed that the law would be enacted so we went to the extent of trying to find ways to get people i.d.
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because we were going to assume that they needed it. and frankly there were enough groups that could help in a presidential year. this now has been postponed to 2014, a gubernatorial year, and there won't be that kind of help. so we're going to continue to try and get people the voter i.d. that will eventually be required in pennsylvania. >> when you think about the levels of news awareness of all the people you have to reach, it can't be through the news media. it's an incredible effort under way. >> it's enormous. >> joan fitzgerald, president of america votes. i would love to talk to you more about this. would you come back and join us again? >> i'd love to. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for doing this. >> absolutely. more news and an important programming update for you still to come. the stay tuned. ♪ these are the days
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it's been a bit of a frenzyed night on politics news. paul ryan from last november says that only 70% of americans want the american dream. the other 30% of americans just want their welfare state. that posted tonight at huffing ton post. in more newly rediscovered footage on right wing websites and on fox news, a prepresidential barack obama can be heard praising his former pastor jeremiah wright. he talked in his speech about wanting to him all this sorts of help to poor people. then candidate obama was talking about iraq war veterans with post traumatic stress disorder. but i'm sure it's better politics for the right if they shorthand iraq war veterans as poor people while also calling mr. obama angry and describing him as having an accent. it's not subtle but i'm